L-S-ARGH!!!!!

So after last week’s wonderful adventure you’d be forgiven for thinking I would be pretty tired on Sunday morning, but you would be wrong. I woke up bright and early, and had my trainers not been drenched from the previous days soaking I would have taken myself off for a long slow run (or LSR).

Absolutely loving life at last weeks park run.

However, as running in wet trainers is not a desirable option I donned my gym trainers, that I definitely can’t run in (incase you were wondering) and finished the last workout on this weeks Ghofitness plan. Its always handy to finish on a Sunday so that I can start a new cycle on a Monday morning and my week tends to run much smoother that way. Unfortunately this week was just not one of those weeks and I had a total fitness/food fail on so many levels. I know many people who read this blog are training for their own events or working towards their own (probably more sensible) goal, so I will take you through my week day by day and highlight all of the things I did wrong to hopefully stop you (and me) from making these mistakes again.

The offending breakfast

Monday: My plan for today was to do a legs workout before work and then go to the track and put in a really good track session with the Crystal Palace Fun Runners. For this to work I needed to do two things: 1) eat a sensible high-carb, low-fat, breakfast. 2) Have a mid-afternoon snack with some healthy fats to keep me full until after running club. What actually happened was that I made a super sickly banana and data pancake for breakfast that I covered in maple syrup resulting in a huge sugar rush that had just about gone before I even walking in the gym, resulting in a half-hearted workout that took twice as long as usual with only half the benefit. Then I came home, ate half a packet of dates, picked at the food I was cooking for my husband, and ended up giving myself a stitch when I got down to the track. Both of these things are more annoying because they were self inflicted. Oh and then I went home and armed with a tablespoon proceeded to eat peanut butter out of the jar.

Tuesday: Actually despite my terrible diet on Monday evening, I made a pretty good start on Tuesday. I cycled to work and then did a good arms session in the gym, finishing with an abs blast. I had a healthy breakfast, then I went to yoga at lunch time and had a really strong class. And then in the afternoon a colleague pulled out some biscuits he brought back from France (that were DELICIOUS, obviously), so I ate about 1000 calories in french pastry biscuits, but then I did cycle home and play tennis so there was at least a little bit of damage limitation… until the peanut butter somehow came out of the cupboard again and demanded I eat it right before bed.

Wednesday: Today I intended to swim for a mile just to prove to myself that I can… It turns out I can’t. In my defence I lost count somewhere around so did 50/88 lengths and just got out, but in that time I swallowed a lot of water and realised that my swimming style is just so inefficient that if I ever want to complete even a half-iron man in the near future I need to do something about it right now. The moral of the story here is don’t just expect to be able to do something big, start smaller (say with half a mile), and build up gradually. Oh and it was cake club so I ate SO MUCH CAKE… and also more peanut butter obviously.

SO. MUCH. CAKE

Thursday: I had to work from home today because I couldn’t go into the office but I still got up early to go to the gym and ate a sensible high-carb breakfast… and then sat around in my PJs until I forced myself to go workout and run some errands at lunch time. I actually ended up having a pretty good workout with minimal snacks today. It was probably the best day of the week.

Friday: Working from home again so the plan was to get up early, go for a run, and throw in a gym session later on. But I did none of those things… Went to the gym for a free PT session that I had won a while back and learned some interesting things about my wonky legs, did some deep stretching, and then came home and ate a cheat meal (you know, cos I had really earned it).

Saturday: Finished my gym plan but missed park run because we were too short on volunteers so I ended up scanning barcodes (which is actually my favourite volunteer role), and I couldn’t swim because there was a race on that I am nowhere near fit enough to enter. Oh and I ate aaaaaaall the carbs, but I did have relatives visiting so you can’t blame me for letting go a little today.

Sunday: Today I got up all ready to go for an LSR of around 18 miles before volunteering at junior park run… but I just couldn’t. I ended up doing 4 miles and going home because I just didn’t have it in me. I do kind of think the draw of having my mum and my auntie sitting in my flat and making me cups of tea probably contributed to todays lack of effort though.

Anyway… to combat this terrible week I have made several changes, and every single one of them involves a plan. I am starting a new diet plan, I have ordered a swimming guide book, and unlike last week I have carefully written out my exercise/food plan ready to start a new week. I really can’t stress enough the importance of a good plan to help stay on track. This week is a prime example of that but its important for me to share these times as I am obviously going to hit some stumbling blocks on my way to an iron man. Hopefully my next blog post will be about how sticking to a plan helped me to be more organised (but it will probably be a “How to eat a whole bunch of egg whites every day for a week without wanting to vomit” post).